"Parents-in-Waiting" (PIW) is a support group for men and women dealing with the pain of infertility as they enter the adoption process. Its purpose is to facilitate grieving the loss of biological parenthood -- with all of its intrapsychic, physiological, marital, familial and social implications -- and thereby to free the infertile to experience the joy of adoptive parenthood.
PIW met bi-monthly for one-and-a-half hours at Vista Del Mar Child and Family Services. It was an open, voluntary group, led by an adoptive mother. Members typically spend two months to a year in PIW, as they plan and complete the adoption of their child. The group usually includes six to twelve members, usually married couples, although occasionally a single woman or a lesbian couple will join. (That, in combination with the facts that the women contribute more to this group's process than the men, that at every meeting there is at least one wife who comes without her husband, and that the group leader is female, skews the focus of many issues toward the female gender).
As a "theme" support group, PIW meets Glassman and Kates' (1986) 16 criteria of the dual definition of social work groups: It develops a "democratic mutual aid system" ("graduates" often form independent adoptive parents' groups that meet informally for a few years after placement) and it "actualizes the members' purpose" -- to complete infertility grief work and achieve "healthy" adoptions. The methods used most effectively to "actualize the purpose" of PIW can also be found in the Glassman and Kates (l986) model: expressing and identifying feelings, sharing perceptions and feelings, identifying themes, identifying projections and self-fulfilling prophesies, creating activities "in the milieu" and reflecting on and reinforcing individual change.
Like many groups, PIW is designed to meet more than one purpose. In addition to support, it provides education and a forum for problem-solving. The members of PIW are part of the current trend toward "open" adoption, in which prospective adoptive parents and birthparents (often just birthmothers) meet prior to the birth of the child. As such, they take a very active role in the adoption process.
The accompanying article follows the progress of one adoptive mother-to-be, Elizabeth, as she travels through the emotion-laden terrain of open adoption. It is a six-month, personal diary that explores Elizabeth's feelings, issues, life experiences and group experiences from her entry into Parents-in-Waiting to her "graduation" and the birth of the baby she will ultimately adopt. "Diary of a Mother-in-Waiting" is formatted chronologically, with first-person journal entries describing each month of Elizabeth's feelings, issues and life experiences appearing first and her corresponding support group experiences, and their impact, following. Infertility support group members can have slower or less consistent progress than Elizabeth's with their grief work, but an infertility support group usually has a positive impact on its members..
As the journey begins, Elizabeth and her husband, Jerry, have ended four years of expensive, painful infertility treatment with a decision to adopt. They plan to use a "collaborative" adoption, i.e., one in which an agency and a private attorney collaborate to locate a birthmother and to coordinate the birth and the relinquishment of the baby. It is January, the start of a new year, and, for Elizabeth, the beginning of what she hopes to be her final approach to motherhood.
Elizabeth is typical at this stage: Beneath her excitement, she is filled with fear and denial. She vacillates between fearful fantasies of adoption traumas and denial of adoption reality. She is terrified "her" birthmother will change her mind and reclaim the baby, scared she will not know how to tell the child of his/her adoption, afraid the child will desert her for the birthmother should there be a "reunion" when the child grows up. At the same time, she is in denial that the adoptive experience will be any different from raising a biological child and, concurrently, that the child should have any need to connect to his/her biological heritage. (Denial of difference is one of two problematic attitudes toward adoption; insistence on difference being the second. Acceptance of difference is the goal.) Moreover, it is a fear of confronting, and, therefore, a denying of, a great loss that underscores Elizabeth's days and nights as she and Jerry join Parents-in-Waiting.
In order to resolve her loss, Elisabeth will need to pass through Elisabeth Kubler-Ross's four stages of mourning, as detailed in her landmark work, On Death and Dying: denial, anger, grief and acceptance. Because she received counseling when her parents died, Elizabeth is aware of the Kubler-Ross model -- and she feels that she has already completed the journey. She is no longer in denial that the infertility exists, she feels that she has expressed her anger over her inability to bear a child and she thinks she has grieved as much as she needs to. What she doesn't realize is that denial has reared its ugly head again, that there's a lot more anger buried way down deep and there are buckets of tears still to cry. P.B.W.
The Story: "Elizabeth's" Diary Begins...
LIFE
January
Today, I went to Barbara's baby shower. It was worse than I expected. I actually had to go into the bathroom and cry when she opened the baby blanket her mother crocheted. I can't stand to go to one more of these things. Everyone is pregnant -- or at least it seems everyone is. The way she kept touching her belly and talking to the baby....I want that. Why can't I have it? I look down and see the flat stomach I used to be so proud of. I don't care if I ever do another sit-up. I want to feel a baby grow and kick inside me. It makes me sick with envy when my pregnant friends talk about how nauseated they are and how their backs hurt. I would do anything to have those "problems." I haven't told any of my friends that we have decided to adopt. I'm nervous about going to the support group our social worker recommended. She thinks I need to work on resolving my infertility (I hate that word) grief before we adopt. I can't wait much longer. I need a baby right now. Then, I'll be okay. That's all I need; then the rest will go away. I hope I'm not invited to any more showers for a while.
PARENTS-IN-WAITING
January
Jerry and I went to the group last night. There were three other couples and a single woman, all trying to adopt after years of infertility. (The single woman had tried artificial insemination. What guts.) It was very nice, very warm. The room was cozy. The leader is an adoptive mom. That's a relief. When she talked about things, she said "we" not "you." She introduced us and told us the purpose of the group, which she said is to help people "grieve" for their lost fertility, before they adopt. She said the goal is to experience and resolve our sadness about not having our own children. Everybody nodded. I'm not sure what that means, but our social worker thinks we should go to this group -- and it was great to be in a room with others just like us. It felt very safe. No one was going to talk about their pregnancy or delivery or how much their kid looks like them.
People shared experiences and feelings. Everyone has been coming to this group for a couple of months, so they seemed to care about each other and to help each other out. The leader kept looking around the table to see if we were listening as each person spoke. She tried to bring in the quiet ones, like Jerry. He doesn't like to talk about personal things like this with his best friends, much less total strangers. I finally talked, though. I told about the baby shower. It felt good. Two other women said they had the same thing happen! The leader helped us talk about what freaking out at a shower might mean.
One lady kept going on forever about telling her parents she wants to adopt. The leader finally said, "I feel that maybe the group wants to move on now." Thank God.
Then we voted on inviting a birthmother to come to a meeting. That scares the hell out of me, but I held up my hand along with everybody else. The leader explained that she brings coffee, tea and sodas every week and that someone else needs to volunteer to bring snacks. A woman said she'd bring cookies. That was it. Scary, but good. We missed our second meeting. I had to work late and Jerry didn't want to go by himself. It was kind of a relief.
LIFE
February
Went shopping at the mall for a dress to wear to my sister's wedding. All I could do was search for babies and kids who didn't look like their moms. It's like an addiction. I'm obsessed. And I spent just as much time looking at adult daughters and mothers -- seeing how they match, how close they look, remembering how happy it made my dad to tell me I have my mom's eyes, cheekbones, hair, sense of humor. Now both my parents are dead. If I can't have a mom to "match" anymore, I want that with my own daughter. I don't want that feeling to end. Will I be able to tell my child about my parents? Like "real" grandparents? Or will they be totally gone, vanished without a trace?
PARENTS-IN-WAITING
February
I had to force myself to go to the group this week. I'm so tired of all of this. Other women just get pregnant and a baby pops out nine months later. They don't have to go to meetings. When I got there, I told another woman how I felt. She said it's often this way in the beginning. After a while, she says you start to look forward to the meetings. We'll see.
This week, I noticed something interesting. The women all talk much more than the men. They even talk for the men. The leader told us a lot about birthmothers -- how old they are, whether the birthfather is usually still around. Then she showed us a tape called Two Kinds of Love about birthmothers and adoptive mothers. I cried. It seems like I cry every day.
Wow! What a night. The birthmother came. She got there early and was sitting in the waiting room when we all came in. We went into our room and started going around the table to share how the week had been. (I'm starting to feel close to these people now -- we feel like a team in the World Series of parenthood.) We were going to have her come in after half an hour, but Diane, who always seems to take charge, said she thought it was impolite to leave her out there. She said we shouldn't have anything to hide. The leader asked for a vote and we all agreed to ask her in. For the first time, I thought about the birthmothers as being part of our "team," not as the opposition.
She told us she gave up a baby 20 years ago. She talked about how sad she is that she doesn't know anything about the family, because in those days, all adoptions were "closed." The doctor told her it was a boy, but she didn't even get to see him. She said she wonders whether he is still alive. God, how awful. She is going to search for him soon. She only wants to know that he's okay and to tell him that she loved him, but just couldn't take care of him. She doesn't expect anything. She doesn't want to be his "mother" -- he already has one. I felt so sad for her, so happy that we are doing an open adoption and so relieved.
After she left, we took out the pictures we brought -- baby pictures of ourselves, our mental pictures of how we thought our own babies would look. We passed them around and talked about what our babies were going to be like -- before infertility stole them away from us.
LIFE
March
I went to see my infertility doctor yesterday.
I made the appointment after Christmas, when we agreed to give it a rest and then maybe do just one last IVF. I forgot all about it, until I turned the page in my weekly calendar and saw her name staring up at me.
I know Jerry and I agreed to cancel, but I guess I just forgot. I don't know, maybe I wasn't ready. I guess I'm still hoping for a miracle. Dr. Snow told me there isn't one. There is nothing new to try, but we could do another cycle it we want. It's so expensive, though. We really can't afford to kiss off another $8,000. And the odds are terrible: about ten to one. The adoption will probably cost about $15,000 -- maybe $20,000 if it's a C-section. If we use the rest of our savings for an IVF, and it doesn't work, we won't have enough left to adopt -- unless we take out a second mortgage or borrow from Jerry's parents. We better go with the adoption. The odds are much better. Last week the PIW leader said we will all get babies, if we can stick it out and not give up when we "hit some bumps along the way." She was pretty convincing.
We had another bad night. It seemed like Jerry and I were about to make love for the first time in weeks -- make love??? -- what a joke !!! Just writing those words makes me see that sex has become a job, a job at which we are apparently so incompetent that we'd be fired for poor productivity if it were real. It's been so long since we've had sex without thermometers and charts and calendars that we don't seem to remember that we once liked to touch each other just for the fun of it. Anyway, what happened was that he started and stopped, then I started and stopped.
Nobody said anything about it, but I must have been grinding my teeth all night, because my jaw was killing me in the morning. Jerry is driving me crazy these days, in general. Partly, I feel guilty, because it's my "fault" we can't get pregnant.
I'm scared of taking care of the baby. I want to hire a baby nurse for at least a month. Jerry says that's crazy -- it's going to be our baby; we have to learn how to take care of it. I wonder if I'd feel this way if I were pregnant. I don't think so. It seems to me that when the baby grows inside you for nine months, you already know it when it comes out, so you know what to do. Our baby will be a stranger.
PARENTS-IN-WAITING
March
We did two role plays. The first one was of a last phone call or appointment with an infertility doctor. I can't believe I'm not the only one who is afraid to say goodbye to her doctor. There were two other couples who hadn't "cut the cord" (as the leader calls it!), yet. We all realized we feel like we are flunking out of school.
I played the doctor in one. (I was shy, but my friends convinced me not to be embarrassed.) That was really helpful. I found words coming out of my mouth like, " It's time to move on. Good luck. Send me a baby picture." I don't know why I was so concerned with what she thinks, anyway. I guess I saw her as an authority figure -- kind of a god, really -- and I wanted to please her by getting "cured." She sort of reminds me of my mom.
The second role play was scary. We rehearsed meeting birthmothers. Only one of us has met a birthmom, but another couple is scheduled for a meeting tomorrow. We're all terrified. We want to look young, but mature. Fun, but dependable. Homey, but not boring. It's pathetic. The thing that really came through from that tape we watched and from the role plays we did was they are just as nervous as we are. We are selling ourselves as parents and they are selling themselves as genetic material.
The husband (finally, a man!) who had met a birthmom shared that they were rejected. Last time, they had made it sound as if they rejected her, but it was really the other way around. That's what we are all afraid of. The leader helped him feel comfortable talking about it. Then she told us the same thing happened to her! She said she felt really depressed, but was introduced to another birthmother three weeks later who turned out to be "the one." She keeps telling us that we'll get the right baby, that all the failures of infertility and the rejections and setbacks of adoption are leading us to the place we're supposed to be.
I just opened the mail---another baby shower. This time, I'm not going. I don't have to go.
LIFE
April
Well, I guess we're making progress. The attorney has called with two birthmothers. I didn't like either one, though. Jerry wanted to meet them, but one was really tall -- no match for my five feet, two inches -- and the other is from a farm in the Midwest. My family is urban and overeducated, so I just didn't think that baby would fit. The attorney seemed bent out of shape that I didn't want to meet them. Jerry is unhappy about it, too.
PARENTS-IN-WAITING
April
On Wednesday, we all brought photocopies of our baby pictures, written descriptions of the personalities and talents of "our" babies and tons of food. Then we put the photos and notes in a pile in the middle of the table and had a "funeral" and wake for them. We each said goodbye to our dream babies. Lots of tears were cried that night and some real friendships were forged. After the meeting, some of us talked in the parking lot for an hour. We agreed to help each other reach our goals and to celebrate and strengthen our new families by continuing to stay in touch when we leave PIW. By now, we know there will be special adoption issues to deal with forever. Getting a baby is just the beginning.
It really does seem that the women are carrying the ball in this whole thing. We are the ones whose ages and work plans everybody seems to focus on. We are the ones who go to the OB appointments with the birthmothers, who talk to them on the phone and answer their letters.
One of the men said he felt left out -- that even though his wife wouldn't have physical custody of the fetus, her body was the symbolic connection to it. That makes him feel like she has some mystical knowledge about babies that he could never have, and so he sits back and lets her do most of the work. He feels incompetent to deal with a lot of the issues and decisions brought up by the adoption process. What an eye-opener! This turned out to be a theme shared by most of the husbands, in varying degrees. We wound up spending the rest of the evening exploring the roles being played by the spouses. Not only did the fire get put out, but the flames shed light on some dark corners in the room.
At the next meeting, the leader brought up some of what she calls our "Big Fears"--- adoptive parent scenarios that are so scary they have us freaked out before we even get a baby. Two that I've thought about a lot are what happens when you are in the market and someone asks where the kid got his hair, eyes, freckles, whatever; and what to say when you are in a "mommy and me" group and everyone is talking about the delivery and asking you about yours and how you got back in shape to fast. She said that there are ways to deal with these situations and she will give us ideas of what to do. She even gave us some examples right on the spot. I'm so glad I joined this group.
I told everyone that I had turned down meeting two potential birthmothers. The leader helped me see that I'm rejecting them because I'm holding onto the fantasy of a child who is just like me.
LIFE
May
Last night, I had a dream in which my parents' faces were floating around the ceiling of my bedroom, like clouds. I told them I was sorry I couldn't make any grandchildren for them, that I had tried and tried. I started to cry in the dream. And they reached out to me and told me to stop. They said that they want me to live my own life, to make a new family with Jerry, just like they had done. They said that my baby wasn't for them, it was for me. They wanted me to go out into the world and find my baby. They said they would be waiting to meet her and to love her. They were very sad that they couldn't be with me, but they said they would be watching over me. It was incredible.
When I got up this morning, I felt exhausted, but strangely calm. Then I saw their picture on the shelf in the bedroom and instantly remembered the dream. I actually collapsed on the floor and just sobbed for I don't know how long. I felt like I was sending my biological children up to my parents, really letting them go for the first time, like they were flying out of my body like little ghosts. I was so grateful to my parents, I thanked their picture a zillion times. And then all day, I've felt light and, I don't know, "spacious"---this must be about making room in my heart for an adopted child by finally clearing out fantasy children, who look like me, act like me and are little bits of my parents reincarnated.
A week has gone by now since my parents came to talk to me, but the feelings are still with me. I really feel different. Freer. More energetic. I called the attorney and apologized for refusing to meet those two birthmothers. I explained that I just wasn't ready and asked him to please put us on his "active" list. He said this has happened before with his clients and he is glad I feel better. And then he called back to set up a meeting with Sandi, "our" birthmother. She's great. Different from me in some ways, like me in others. The birthfather isn't around anymore, but he sounds like a nice person -- and he's athletic like Jerry. (We've learned a lot about which traits are hereditary and which aren't.) The baby is due in six weeks. I can't believe it. I have never been so excited in my life!
PARENTS-IN-WAITING
May
An adoptive mother/nurse came tonight. She brought a fake baby and lots of bathing and feeding equipment, and showed us how to do the basics. It was great. One of the women had shared last month that she went to a baby-care class at a hospital and felt very uncomfortable, because everyone was visibly pregnant and talking about bonding and breast feeding and so on.
The nurse spoke right to my fear of not being a "real" mom. She said that expectant mothers -- pregnant expectant mothers, that is! -- are terrified, too. They don't know how to take care of babies, either. In many ways we are actually better prepared because we've already had to deal with stress in our marriages, with gender role issues, with feeling physically awful, with the possibility of our children being completely different from us, with reordering our priorities, with looking at our relationships with our extended families and -- most importantly -- with exploring our motivations to be parents. It hasn't been easy. We've worked hard, and that makes me feel good. My self-esteem must be climbing now, because people keep telling me how great I look.
Last night, we told everyone the great news. Everybody was excited, but the newest couple and the oldest couple were clearly envious as well. I don't blame them; I have felt the same way. I felt sad, too, when Susan graduated. She added a lot of energy to the group.
The leader encouraged all of us to express our feelings. She asked Jerry and me to share what we thought we had learned and how we've changed since joining the group. I think that was for the new couple who look as freaked-out as I felt five months ago. She also cautioned us not to get too excited, but to protect ourselves just a little bit, in case something goes wrong. I'm going to think positive. This has got to be it.
LIFE
June
Diana was born two days ago. We were in the delivery room when she made her entrance into the world. I've never felt so close to Jerry. Sandi was very brave, but very sad. We promised to send her the first baby pictures we get developed, and then a letter and picture around Diana's birthday every year. She promised to keep in touch with the agency if she moves or if any health issues come up in her family that we should know about. I hope Diana wants to meet her when she grows up. She is an exceptional person.
We called the group leader with the good news. One of the couples who graduated from PIW came back with their baby last month. They brought a beautiful poem:
Neither flesh of my flesh
Nor bone of my bone
But still, miraculously, my own
Never forget for a single minute
You didn't grow under my heart
But in it!
My sister saw it in my kitchen and is going to make a needlepoint of it for Diana's room. As happy as I am, I've realized that bringing home my baby isn't a magic cure for infertility. I will always be sad that I didn't carry and give birth to Diana. That's just the way it is. Oh, I wouldn't trade her for three biological babies; I just wish I could have had her inside me. When the day comes to tell her about adoption, I'm going to take the PIW leader's advice and let her know that. I feel so bonded to this tiny human being already that if, as she grows up, we aren't afraid to recognize and share the loss adoption symbolizes---along with tremendous gains---we should be able to get through just about anything together.
© Penelope Bloch White
Credits: Roots & Wings Adoption Magazine
